Where in the World is...?

I have a task for all who see this post. Can you add your marker to a world map?

The latest TELive in particular THIS Spreecast has inspired me to make the following map. I'm not sure if this will be a success or not but its free branding for those who want it. I am always curious where people are in the world and it is great for catching up with the online community to see how close or how far away we live from each other. Also for those planning vacations ;)

First go to THIS SITE. I have added my location to show you where in the world Australia is. There are instructions at the top of the page.

This page will be pinned to the top menu bar of this blog.

Big thanks

Kris Rogers

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Is Spam Effective Advertising?

If you own a computer and have an internet connection it is likely that you have been spammed! 

Wikipedia.org states:

the term spam is derived from the 1970 Spam sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... lovely Spam! wonderful Spam!", hence "Spamming" the dialogue.

The Free Dictionary.com explains spam as:

unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

In other words, any email or message that you receive that you didn't opt-in to or ask for! In the offline world this would be like commercials being shown during your favourite television show, or "junk mail" in the letter box!  Some examples are, unwanted comments posted to a blog, forum or profile (for example, Facebook) which are not in context to the topic. The most common form of spam is unwanted email advertising, sometimes called "junk email". Some spam is also less obvious and tries to mimic other well known sites and this is called phishing. The object of phishing is to try to get personal information which can lead to fraud. There are also emails claiming to be from you. This is effective at getting your attention!

Spam is an annoyance in our work places and leads to wasted time. It is with mixed blessings that as "spammers" get more clever so do the email filters for email providers. However, this can lead to "false positives" and some providers are too harsh and you don't end up receiving or can't open legitimate emails. 

Commercial email operations are very cheap and cost-effective to the sender. Also, people actually must click on these junk emails for there to be any benefit for the sender. These emails are generally not personalised, sent in bulk and from people you don't know. So why do people click on these? Maybe they have won a lotto, need prescription medication, have an inheritance, want to spend money at an online casino, or someone wants to provide some kinky photos for all to see (wink). Yes, unfortunately people do buy products from these emails and the cycle continues. People new to computers and email sometimes can be naive to these tricks of advertising.

What do you/ should you do? For a start get a good anti-virus as some of these emails can contain unwanted programs that wreak havoc with your computer! Organise your email account so only your wanted emails go into your inbox. All the rest will be put in the "junk" folder. It is still a good idea to browse  your "junk" folder periodically as any new email address will be filtered here until you tell it otherwise. Finally, to answer the question YES spam is effective if people respond to the emails. IGNORE ALL SPAM! It is your clicks they are after. This means their advertising campaigns are successful. Your clicks and even the opening of an email CAN be tracked! 

Learn to Build a List

Recently I have noticed a lot of focus about list building. Well why not? It is an essential part of marketing, even an offline business has an email or mailing list. Maybe because recently joining a list was a way to earn a ClickTrackProfit Bigfoot badge. I bought a badge which looked like this:

My efforts for list building from the Bigfoot badge hunt : 40 subscribers...plus 3 still needed to verify their account.

What I find hard to understand is that people joined the list in the expectation of receiving something. Any list should have this vital element. Even if this is only information, but in my case I would be providing a badge. However, people still didn't verify.

Why do people have to verify? This process is essential to prove it is a real email address and that the person is real. You want people to read your emails and this is the part when you say please whitelist my emails, check in the spam folders etc. Sometimes it is out of our control as email providers think its spam and block your email altogether. Occasionally someone will join under several emails as for some reason they are not receiving it or did not verify one email.

I recently decided to purge my list. There is no point bragging you have 10K subscribers when half of them have not verified their email.  If subscribers (or future/ potential subscribers) are not receiving my emails why keep them on the list.

Another fact of list building is unsubscribers. This made me think....There would be a high probability of people unsubscribing after this badge hunt as they got what they wanted out of subscribing.  How can I or what can I do to retain people on my list?

So, over the last couple of weeks I have performed a mini experiment on my list of subscribers to this blog. I wanted to engage the list and offer them an exciting offer too good to refuse! If they didn't open their email I sent they missed out. I named the email: Thank you for subscribing...gift inside. Out of 275 only 14 clicked the email and only 8 people took me up on this offer below. I want to live up to my FREEREWARDS4U name.

I wanted to reward my list and thought how do I keep subscribers reading the emails I send. So I simply sent this email:

I'm feeling very generous today. There is nothing I am going to invite you to join. All I ask is your continued support of my Freerewards4u blog and stay subscribed. Please feel free to send me a splash page of your choice and I will promote it and give you 500 views!

Please email me at freerewards4ucontact@gmail.com with your splash page and name/email address you used to sign up with so I can confirm your subscription.

Enjoy this bonus!

Kris Rogers
http://freerewards4u.net

There was no strings attached just a thank you. Aim: Time will tell me how many unsubscribers there will be. Yes, this was an experiment and I'm also happy I can help some people with their advertising. So to those 261 people you saved me 130, 500 credits! Of course I never imagined any more than a handful of people would take up the offer and I'm not sure I have that many credits to spare. Phew! I am likely to offer other freebies to my list as they are the life blood to what I am trying to achieve...to keep and grow an engaged list.

The whole purpose of a list is promotion. Jon Olson recently said on a TELive that promote to your list and promote on your blog. On a splash page in TEs promote that blog to build your list. I totally agree. This seems to be the best method. Gather your list and promote to that list. This is YOUR list. I want to keep this list growing. Click Track Profit teaches people how to build a list by using an autoresponder and I use Rocketresponder because I get all the stats I need to see what works and what doesn't. It shows who is clicking on your emails and who isn't and much more. These two programs together work brilliantly. Start building your list today and you won't be disappointed. 

Until next time

Kris Rogers

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